Egyptian Album-2
Forever fascinated as a child by the film Amphibian Man and later by the documentary series about Cousteau's travels, I have always dreamed of diving in the southern seas and seeing the reefs and their inhabitants with my own eyes. This day strengthened me even more in the belief that absolutely all dreams come true.
After a hearty breakfast, we were to meet with the hotel guide, who was supposed to tell us, paraphrasing Vysotsky's famous song "... what is possible here, what is not. " A guide named Mohsen is a colorful oriental personality who speaks good Russian with a touching accent like the actor Frunzik Mkrtchan (“I’ll tell you one smart thing, but don’t be offended, yes! ”). He told us about the hotel, what opportunities the all-inclusive system gives us and many other smart things.
Mohsen, according to him, worked in the tourism business for 15 years and over the years noticed that vacationers from Ukraine differ in one characteristic feature - they have incredible self-confidence and a firm belief that they know everything in the world, they will figure it out and outwit anyone. In fact, in the end it turns out that it is with the Ukrainians that the most problems arise. As an example, he told several recent cases about how one of our fellow countrymen “bought” an Egyptian prostitute from a taxi driver, paying him $ 200 in advance on the promise that he would bring her directly to the hotel, after unsuccessfully waiting until 3 a. m. , the macho womanizer began to call the guide and demand to call the police because he realized that he was the victim of a scammer.
It was our compatriot in one of the alleys of Hurghada who was sold for $ 800 a papyrus that is “4 thousand years old”, and two housewives from Kharkov have been living in a hotel for the third day for $ 140 a day from the nose and cannot fly home, because the documents during registration are not correct indicated the flight number of the plane, thus they did not get on their plane, and there are no empty seats on planes flying back to Ukraine. And it is our boys who buy hashish from locals in which only the name comes from hashish, under the guise of hashish they sell anything in consistency and color that somehow resembles what they are looking for. In short, the briefing was reminiscent of an evening with Zadornov, only our compatriots acted as “stupid Americans”.
Finally, the lecture is over, we run to the room for equipment - masks, fins and tubes we took with us, we go to the beach.
The day before, I found out from a fellow vacationer where to dive in order to fully enjoy the spectacle of tropical fish, so we immediately headed to the reef. First, it was necessary to walk 200-300 meters knee-deep in the water, then when it became deeper they put on the equipment and swam, it was necessary to swim approximately the same distance to the sandy spit turning yellow in the distance. It is easy to swim, the water of the Red Sea is more concentrated and saturated with salts than the Black Sea, and the body normally stays on the surface, and the fins give the movement additional speed and ease. On the spit, you need to take off your flippers again and walk on foot, here it’s very shallow, the seemingly almost hot water barely reaches your knees. Sun glare forms bizarre patterns in shallow water, flocks of fish flicker everywhere. I want to go down into the water and stay among this beauty and peace, soon we notice dark spots ahead through the water - these are corals.
Carefully, so as not to get hurt, we go around them, looking for passages in the ever-condensing heap of corals. Now the depth allows you to swim, again put on equipment and swim. Before your eyes opens a fantastic picture of such a riot of colors you will not find anywhere else: fish of various sizes from a matchbox to half a meter long incredible color and shape; branches of purple, blue, red, yellow, green corals, corals in the form of a ball, mushroom, cabbage leaves. We swim along the cliff of the “wall” of the reef, enthusiastically and excitedly give signs to each other, paying attention to the fish changing like images in a kaleidoscope, occasionally diving deeper to take a closer look at both fish and corals. I spot a sea urchin http://bcrc. bio. umass. edu/vifishandwildlife/Education/FactSheet/Images/Diadema1.
jpg - black, shining like coal needles longer than 30 cm stick out from behind the coral, I immediately remember everything I read on the internet about diving (snorkeling) on reefs - it is strictly forbidden to touch anything with your hands. Among the inhabitants of the seabed there are many dangerous objects, which are often the brighter and more beautiful, the more poisonous. Then, a little further away, diving deeper once again, I was lucky to meet, unfortunately, a small size, about a meter, Napoleon fish adults reach 2 meters in length and quite impressive dimensions. After swimming enough, we head towards the beach, the way back seems shorter despite being slightly tired. We rest in the shade on sunbeds for another hour. We greedily and drink a lot of juice at the pool bar - after the salty-bitter water, I really want to drink.
After lunch, we walked around the territory, lay around, sipping cocktails, on the sun loungers by the pool, went to the neighboring hotel, which is part of the Festival system, to change dollars for local pounds. Mohsen warned that it is better to pay for goods and services in Egyptian pounds, the rate is the same throughout the country and for all banks 1 dollar-5.5 pounds. They gave a bellboy named Ayma £.5 for helping to blow up the safe on the first day and for adding more liquid soap and shampoo to the special wall fixtures at our request. I don’t know, maybe these five pounds had such an impact or it’s sincere, but the next day Ayma created a swan figure and a heart out of bath towels on our bed, and later, when meeting him in the corridor, he constantly asked if everything was all right with us, Are there any problems and do you need anything else. He cleaned the room daily and changed the sheets and towels daily.
It turns out there is such a rule - if you no longer use a towel, then you just need to throw it on the floor. In the refrigerator, water was constantly added to replace the drunk, 1 bottle per resident. By the way, we just hid the water in a suitcase, collected it for an excursion to Luxor. The guide warned us that the cost of the tour includes lunch in a restaurant, but drinks or water will have to be bought. For one day of excursion under the scorching sun, we drank about 3 liters each. The cost of 0.6 liters of water in cafes along the route of the sightseeing buses is 1 dollar, 1.5 liters is 2 dollars, a plastic cup of ordinary Lipton tea in bags is 2 dollars. (! ). But about excursions will be further.
